SEO vs Paid Search: How They Differ and Why They're Better Together

Everyone wants their business to show up when people search for their name, product, or service online. Search engines are a key driver of high-intent traffic, conversions, and revenue for businesses, and we all understand that, yet we still get asked:

“Is search advertising the same as SEO?”

The short answer is no, but the conversation doesn’t stop there, because SEO (search engine optimization) and search advertising (aka paid search or PPC, short for pay-per-click) fall under the same marketing umbrella.

The difference is often misunderstood, especially by small businesses. Even those who grasp the distinction tend to treat them as alternatives, as if you have to pick one or the other for your business, which is not true.

Both SEO and paid search are avenues of gaining visibility in search results, the difference lies in the tools and methods used to make it happen.

Despite requiring many of the same skills, having expertise in both practices is surprisingly rare, with agencies often specializing in one or the other - and if they do offer both services, it’s common to have separate staff/teams devoted to each. We get that having them siloed off can be frustrating if you ask a question about what you see in the search results and are told “oh, that’s the organic listing, our team only handles the ads”, or vice versa, but you do want your investment in the most capable hands.

This article breaks down the key differences between how SEO and paid search, and illustrates why investing in both is often the most effective strategy.

The Difference Between SEO and Paid Search

SEO is the practice of improving the chances of showing up in organic (free) search results on platforms such as Google or Bing.

It involves improving a website’s technical health, content quality, and topical authority, which essentially trains the search engine to view the organization as trustworthy when the algorithm selects the most reputable things to show users in a given moment. While showing up is free, there is a lot of work and expertise required to make that happen, so it’s a tad misleading to say “SEO is free”.

In order for the search engine to properly read and understand the website, it requires optimizing everything from the page and header structure to the loading speed. Your ranking also involves external factors outside of your website, such as customer reviews, and having your website linked/mentioned in other places. Results can be slow to materialize, but are generally durable and cost-effective over time.

Paid search entails paying to appear in sponsored placements on search engines.

It provides access to priority spots above organic listings as well as less expensive spots further down the search results. Showing up higher and having a better chance at getting clicked on go hand-in-hand (although paying for the very top spot in search isn't always worth it), so advertisers try to be as efficient as possible with shrewd targeting, unique & compelling ad copy, and monitoring competitor activity to find and test new angles.

It is very much a numbers game rooted in data. Every campaign, ad, keyword, etc, all have granular performance metrics associated with them, providing a finger on the pulse of your specific market, seeing what’s working and what’s not. This valuable data allows advertisers to learn and adjust on the fly, with changes reflected almost immediately in the user-facing search results, providing more control.

The question we then get asked about SEO vs paid search:

"Is one better than the other?"

From a business perspective, it’s easy to get sucked into thinking one of the extremes:

• SEO is free and ads cost money, so let’s just work on SEO to get results at no cost

• Ads are fast and SEO is slow, so let’s just run ads because that will get results quicker

From the user perspective, however, the distinction matters less and less. They don’t see the behind-the-scenes of an ad account, housing a complex build of campaigns with literally hundreds of settings, or the work that went into getting an organic listing to show high enough to not be buried on the dreaded second page of Google.

Even the distinction of what appears as sponsored versus not is less obvious than ever, with the markers being more subtle than they were years ago. Ads used to be off to the side or housed in a colored box making them easy to ignore. Shout out to 2001, this is what Google search results used to look like:

But now, paid and non-paid listings look almost the same, thus fewer users instinctively bypass the ads to spend time hunting through the organic listings.

In most cases, users don't care about the difference, they just want the thing they’re looking for, and they rely on search engines to provide accurate information right away.

Why SEO and Paid Search are Better Together

If someone opens Google to look for a plumber in a panic because their sink is leaking, they don’t thoroughly audit the search results and sift out sponsored from organic. They want a plumber, and they want one now. They quickly search, scan for something that looks relevant and trustworthy, then take action.

Many businesses don’t always rank high for the very service they provide, simply due to how many competitors they have. That’s true of both the organic and paid results, as they’re all jockeying for position, looking to have an edge on everyone else.

A business could work hard on SEO and still not vault over their competitors in the organic rankings due to being less established, and there’s no shortcut to having a longer history or more/better reviews. In such cases, the immediacy and control of ads is a huge benefit.

Even if you are running search ads, you don’t show every time due to getting outbid in a given moment, or the algorithm opting not to show ads at all based on the context of the search (and to learn more about why you might not see your search ad when you go looking for it, click here). Showing up in the organic listings then gives you a shot without the risk of escalating costs or bidding on low-priority searches.

If the ad shows and the user doesn’t click on it, but clicks on the organic result, the ad wasn’t a waste either. Paid search is pay-per-click, so no click = no charge = no harm done. If anything, it gave you double exposure for free.

Organic content and paid content can have an incremental effect on each other by helping you stay top-of-mind; people who never heard of you before seeing your ad are now more familiar with you, therefore more likely to click on your organic listing in the future, and vice versa. More efficient advertising saves money to reach more net-new customers, and the snowball effect is in motion.

Having a presence in both the organic and paid results increases your total visibility thus giving you a better chance of capturing the attention of a searching customer.

So What?

SEO and paid search are on the same team, they just play different positions, so don’t assume one replaces the other. They also can’t always overcome each other’s deficiencies. Even good ads can’t fix a bad website, which is why we advise our clients to invest in both. If you’re going to spend money attracting new customers, you don’t want to send them to a website that is unattractive or difficult to use, then turn around and blame the ads.

When businesses advertise, they want to amplify their message and increase overall activity, not waste money or cannibalize organic traffic by turning free clicks into paid clicks. Solid SEO helps free up budget to target more specific keywords and address gaps or areas where organic visibility is limited.

That’s our goal in running paid search campaigns: we want to find what’s working and build on it, with a strategy that hones in on valuable searches resulting in real growth.

What does that look like for you? We would love to hear!